# Best reamer?



## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 6, 2011)

So I've seen reamers ranging from 3.95 to 50 bucks for a set of high grades. I'm getting to the point of where I'll need to use one if I'm going to start practicing restoring pipes.

What is a reamer out there with a good reputation behind it? Can some one link it?

Is there anything out there that is considered the base line standard like there are with cigar accessories, or do they all work the same?


----------



## Habanolover (Feb 22, 2006)

Jason, the Senior Pipe reamer is what was suggested to me by many here.

*Senior Pipe reamer at smokingpipes*


----------



## shannensmall (Jun 30, 2010)

A lil off the cuff, but I know these work great. I also know of at least one other brother who uses one on cake removal.

80 Piece Rotary Tool Kit

It's powerful enough to remove cake, but weak enough that you would have to be really intent on eating Briar with it for it to damage the bowl. You can literally stop it from spinning with your fingers.


----------



## CWL (Mar 25, 2010)

Start out with a British Butner self-adjusting reamer. This will adjust to the diameter & angle of the pipe bowl. This is good for maintenance of your pipes so the cake won't build up. This is cheap & very useful and will teach you the process of pipe reaming/maintenance. 

After that, look into the Senior Pipe Reamers. Be careful with this as it will tear-up your bowl if you aren't careful.

Never use for meers.


----------



## Habanolover (Feb 22, 2006)

CWL said:


> Start out with a British Butner self-adjusting reamer. This will adjust to the diameter & angle of the pipe bowl. This is good for maintenance of your pipes so the cake won't build up. This is cheap & very useful and will teach you the process of pipe reaming/maintenance.
> 
> After that, look into the Senior Pipe Reamers. Be careful with this as it will tear-up your bowl if you aren't careful.
> 
> Never use for briars.


So are you saying to not use the Senior on a briar? So many of the guys here suggested the Senior to me that this would be a total contradiction. :ask:


----------



## Eirik (May 7, 2010)

I have one with two adjustable blades, with a screw who holds it in place. I've seen a lot of these around. It's cheap and fits good in the bottom of the bowl. I thougt about the Senior but I've heard they have a problem with the bottom. The drill bit is a nice feature!!
Before I used sandpaper wrapped around a pencil, it worked nice.
I still do if I dont get the reamer to take the shape I want.
I want a genuine shapeshifting reamer. I guess I buy the Senior reamer sometime,but there's a lot I want to buy before.

There is videos on youtube about the Senior reamer.


----------



## Poneill272 (Oct 29, 2010)

Another vote for the Senior Pipe Reamer???


----------



## Nachman (Oct 16, 2010)

+1 on the Butner, but make sure it is a real Butner, not a "Butner style reamer". There is a lot of difference in how well they work. A cheap "Butner style" will dig in to the briar and does not conform as well to the shape of the pipe.


----------



## GuitarDan (Nov 26, 2009)

have gander: How to Ream a Tobacco Pipe - Reaming a Tobacco Pipe | With Pipe and Pen

as for me... I use a pocket knife with a round tip, and sandpaper wrapped around a wooden dowel.


----------



## CWL (Mar 25, 2010)

"Never use for Briars"

Sorry folks, I was going to type "Never use on Meers" but mistyped and thought I deleted it. Didn't realize it was still at the bottom of my post.

As for the Senior Reamer, it will work, but get too aggressive with it and remove cake & wood at the same time. Reaming should be a slow & careful process.


----------



## shotokun16 (Jul 5, 2010)

YouTube - Senior Pipe Reamer Adjustable

I love it--i own one and used it maybe 3-4x and it works flawless. The weight, grip, and the drill that comes with it is a powerhouse. 
Almost ST. Patricks day!

NOTE: i got my sr. reamer from ebay*
SENIOR PIPE REAMER TOOL- NEW - eBay (item 320651301586 end time Apr-02-11 11:39:15 PDT)


----------



## Habanolover (Feb 22, 2006)

CWL said:


> "Never use for Briars"
> 
> Sorry folks, I was going to type "Never use on Meers" but mistyped and thought I deleted it. Didn't realize it was still at the bottom of my post.
> 
> As for the Senior Reamer, it will work, but get too aggressive with it and remove cake & wood at the same time. Reaming should be a slow & careful process.


Whew, glad to hear. I was gonna be pissed if I had wasted my money.

Another question, about how long does it take before a pipe needs to be reamed? I guess a better question would be, approximately how many bowls smoked before?


----------



## TXsmoker (Sep 6, 2010)

Habanolover said:


> Jason, the Senior Pipe reamer is what was suggested to me by many here.
> 
> *Senior Pipe reamer at smokingpipes*


I use an old Kleen Reem that seems to be the same thing as the Senior. Works great, but doesnt work on everything.


----------



## Savvy (Jun 23, 2007)

Most of what I've read on the Senior reamer has been considerably positive. As a result of this thread I realized SP has them back in stock. Guess I'll go shopping tomorrow then...


----------



## GuitarDan (Nov 26, 2009)

Habanolover said:


> Whew, glad to hear. I was gonna be pissed if I had wasted my money.
> 
> Another question, about how long does it take before a pipe needs to be reamed? I guess a better question would be, approximately how many bowls smoked before?


It all depends on how fast you build cake. Don't worry so much. the thickness of a dime is good, once it gets to be thicker than a nickel's edge you trim it back. It's not like you've only got a few smokes before your pipe explodes! *chuckle*

If you smoke a pipe all day, every other day- you'd probably still have 3-5 months before it needed attention.


----------



## Habanolover (Feb 22, 2006)

GuitarDan said:


> It all depends on how fast you build cake. Don't worry so much. the thickness of a dime is good, once it gets to be thicker than a nickel's edge you trim it back. It's not like you've only got a few smokes before your pipe explodes! *chuckle*
> 
> If you smoke a pipe all day, every other day- you'd probably still have 3-5 months before it needed attention.


Thanks, I don't smoke my pipes every day and I have a decent rotation (14 pipes) so I should not have to worry about it for quite a while. :tu


----------



## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

I've used the Senior a few times and it worked fine. Like they say, go slow and easy with it, it's razor sharp! The "drill" that comes with it saved me a few days ago. I had put a golf tee in the end of a pipe I was doing a salt treatment on and it got stuck in there! After I broke the tee, trying to get it out, I was panicking! Turns out the tee itself had adhered to the walls of the stem. The little borer was bale to get it out of there without redrilling. (Well, not REAL redrilling.)

That little drill seems like it would be handy for clearing the stem on estate pipes that have built up char that doesn't really dissolve in alcohol clogging the draw. (I've heard of this, not actually seen it.)


----------



## bent-1 (Feb 3, 2011)

CWL said:


> Start out with a British Butner self-adjusting reamer. This will adjust to the diameter & angle of the pipe bowl. This is good for maintenance of your pipes so the cake won't build up. This is cheap & very useful and will teach you the process of pipe reaming/maintenance.
> 
> After that, look into the Senior Pipe Reamers. Be careful with this as it will tear-up your bowl if you aren't careful.
> 
> Never use for meers.


Agreed, the Butner brand cuts a nice even cake parallel to the chamber walls. Another I like very much is called Rocket Reamer produced by Bradberry. It's no longer being made unfortunately, but turns up sometimes on ebay.

Here's a picture


----------



## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

GuitarDan said:


> It all depends on how fast you build cake. Don't worry so much. the thickness of a dime is good, once it gets to be thicker than a nickel's edge you trim it back. It's not like you've only got a few smokes before your pipe explodes! *chuckle*
> 
> If you smoke a pipe all day, every other day- you'd probably still have 3-5 months before it needed attention.


How fast you build cake is a function of the type of tobacco you smoke, I would think. Something like 1Q, with all the sugar, will add it faster than Escudo, I'd bet.

Then there's the patina versus the char to consider. You can actually chip away the cake with pipe tool or something dull. It pops off the patina on the chamber in chunks, and you can carefully, with a little time, remove all the char this way. The patina is the valuable part that you shouldn't touch, but it is so thin than removing it is practically synonymous with removing the briar.

Chipping away all the char leaves the bowl in something of a pristine state, all ghosts hiding in any char pretty much removed. The patina is something like the cooking surface of a well cared for and well used iron skillet or pizza pan. Thinks don't stick to it. Char is largely soot, patina is (I would guess) extremely dense tars that have condensed on the wood. A chemical engineer could probably clarify this for us, or perhaps an industrious googler could provide a link.

My Sasieni Mayfair has been "chip-reamed" many times. I use a Brebbia pipe tool, because it has no sharp edges. I start somewhere, pushing against cake and a chunk will break off. Sometimes it's a big piece, sometimes not so big. Now I have an edge and I push on it with the pipe tool and another piece pops off. You keep it up until the char has all popped away from the char and you're done. I think it's better than reaming, personally, but if I was restoring estate pipes -- pheeh, not a chance!

I try to keep char from building up in the first place, in general, but the Mayfair seems to build char faster than my other pipes. Have no idea why.


----------



## kneepa (Feb 6, 2011)

How about the Italian Reamer? My B&M has a box load of these and even tho I'm in no need for a reamer as of yet I was thinking of getting one.


----------



## Eirik (May 7, 2010)

freestoke said:


> Then there's the patina versus the char to consider. You can actually chip away the cake with pipe tool or something dull. .


Interesting..
I'll try it on some of the cheap estates I bought. 
The cake seams realy hard on one of them. A chisle is kind of dull.. Maybe a hammer and one of those...


----------



## CaptainEnormous (Sep 30, 2010)

My $.02.

I've reamed probably 150 pipes with the Senior Pipe Reamer. It does a great job on a variety of bowl sizes. My issues with it are:
- It can be tiresome on the hand, particularly if you are reaming several well used estate pipes one after another. 
- It doesn't do a great job at the bottom of the bowl. 

Castleford makes a reamer kit for about the same money ($25, shipped). It comes with 4 detachable reamers of various diameters. It does a better job on the bottom of bowls (the end of the reamer bits are bowl shaped), and comes with a "T" shaped handle, which means it's easier to use. That said, I've only reamed about 25 bowls with the Castleford. So I can't say for sure how well it holds up over time.

Overall, I'm glad I have both. If I had to choose one, it'd be the Castleford.


----------



## DirtyBlackSocks (Jan 6, 2011)

bent-1 said:


> Agreed, the Butner brand cuts a nice even cake parallel to the chamber walls. Another I like very much is called Rocket Reamer produced by Bradberry. It's no longer being made unfortunately, but turns up sometimes on ebay.
> 
> Here's a picture


Here's another rocket reemer, with a pipe and some other goodies for 20 bucks on e-bay if you want a backup

VINTAGE ESTATE SMOKING PIPE ROCKET REAMER KEEN EDGE - eBay (item 170605683149 end time Mar-21-11 09:04:52 PDT)


----------



## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

Eirik said:


> Interesting..
> I'll try it on some of the cheap estates I bought.
> The cake seams realy hard on one of them. A chisle is kind of dull.. Maybe a hammer and one of those...


On rereading what I wrote, I seemed to have overstated things a bit. First, "many times" is an exaggeration: I think 3 times. Twice with the Mayfair and once with a Sasieni Four Dot way back in college. Second, it doesn't come up much, because you need a fairly thick cake for it to work right. I don't let that happen very fast.

This is actually covered in _The Pipe_, by Georges Herment, "Scraping Out the Bowl", page 139:
*
But here a problem arises -- a much debated problem among pipe scrapers. To what degree should a pipe be scraped out? There are two schools of thought on this subject.

The First School of Thought recommends chipping out the char in piecs, starting from the lip of the bowl. With a little experience it is easy to do this right to the bottom. The interior of the bowl will now appear of a shiny blackness, for we are in the presence of the char proper, which must not be touched...

The Second School of Thought believes in a partial scraping out, for it holds that leaving a thin coat of char makes a better foundation for future smokes...
*
A very good read, _The Pipe_.


----------



## MarkC (Jul 4, 2009)

CaptainEnormous said:


> My $.02.
> 
> I've reamed probably 150 pipes with the Senior Pipe Reamer. It does a great job on a variety of bowl sizes. My issues with it are:
> - It can be tiresome on the hand, particularly if you are reaming several well used estate pipes one after another.
> ...


I only own the Castleford set, but I intend to get the Senior Reamer as well. After reading your post, I'll know to hang on to the Castleford set when I do!

For those of you who aren't familiar with the Castelford sytem, the drawback with it is that you only have four 'settings' to work with, based on bowl size. If the bowl you're reaming isn't a convenient size for the set, you won't be able to ream the cake as you would like. Plus, forget tapered bowls.


----------



## FlimFlammery (Feb 25, 2011)

freestoke said:


> * The interior of the bowl will now appear of a shiny blackness, for we are in the presence of the char proper, which must not be touched...*


What a great description. I half expect to hear angels singing and a golden light shinning down from heaven the next time I ream out a pipe.


----------



## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

FlimFlammery said:


> What a great description. I half expect to hear angels singing and a golden light shinning down from heaven the next time I ream out a pipe.


I get the tone of one of those old Mummy movies, where they are deciding whether or not they should break the Seal of the Sacred Scarab.


----------



## FlimFlammery (Feb 25, 2011)

freestoke said:


> I get the tone of one of those old Mummy movies, where they are deciding whether or not they should break the Seal of the Sacred Scarab.


I was thinking more of an Ark of the Covenant type situation. Ream out your pipe, melt a few Nazis, then exit scene left smoking some FVF saying "They shoulda known better."


----------



## bent-1 (Feb 3, 2011)

Thanks for the listing DBS!


----------



## Eirik (May 7, 2010)

MarkC said:


> For those of you who aren't familiar with the Castelford sytem, the drawback with it is that you only have four 'settings' to work with, based on bowl size. If the bowl you're reaming isn't a convenient size for the set, you won't be able to ream the cake as you would like. Plus, forget tapered bowls.


The one I got :Find DUNHILL Pfeifenreiniger Kopfreiniger Pipereamer on eBay International Market, with worldwide deals on items in all your top categories

I did not pay anything near that sum... I've seen similar ones new realy cheap. It's nice beeing able to widen the reamer for just a mm or so at the time. It does not have an edge in the bottom, but I dont know if thats
necessery.


----------



## Aquinas (Mar 30, 2010)

Is this reamer worth picking up?
Pipe Accessories Brigham Pipe Reamer Accessories at Smoking Pipes .com


----------



## Firedawg (Nov 8, 2010)

That one looks really cheap. I had one that pulled the rivets out with ease so it all came apart. Now I have an older one found on ebay that is made 10 times better and works perfectly. Also look at getting a senior reamer. The Senior reamer will last you a life time. goodl uck


----------



## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

Hell, you can get a real reamer for $15 bucks + shipping. Why skimp? Amazon.com: Senior Reamer Tobacco Pipe Reamer: Everything Else Even this one seems better, http://www.amazon.com/Castleford-Piece-Multi-Fit-Tobacco-Reamer/dp/B002WR1NIM/ref=pd_sim_misc_1, but I've never used either the one you asked about or the Castleford. I can vouch for the Senior Reamer though. Works well.


----------



## Contrabass Bry (May 3, 2010)

I think you would need both the Senior/Kleen Reem and the Castleford/Pip Net reamers to cover your bases (or at least get to the bottom of both tapered and straight bowls.)

If it's too much of an outlay, as has been mentioned before, some high grit sandpaper and a dowel (or finger) does a great job as well.


----------



## Aquinas (Mar 30, 2010)

Jim(freestoke),
You are the man! I got the castleford from the link you posted for $6.95+3.95shipping. I think this will be a great start! Thanks guys for the info.


----------



## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

Aquinas said:


> Jim(freestoke),
> You are the man! I got the castleford from the link you posted for $6.95+3.95shipping. I think this will be a great start! Thanks guys for the info.


You bet! Hope it works for you! :tu


----------



## Flugplatz (Nov 24, 2009)

GuitarDan said:


> have gander: How to Ream a Tobacco Pipe - Reaming a Tobacco Pipe | With Pipe and Pen
> 
> as for me... I use a pocket knife with a round tip, and sandpaper wrapped around a wooden dowel.


As I, I've always used a swiss army knife to clean out my carbon. Works wonderfully and a cheap alternative. I won one of those really fancy sets at a show one time, and traded it up to a vendor for a beautiful Brebbia by Muller custom. Best deal I've ever made!


----------



## Aquinas (Mar 30, 2010)

The Castleford reamer set showed up. I reamed a handful of estate pipes that I am restoring. The reamer set worked great! A lot of results for a little price. Before, I was just using high grit sandpaper, which is time consuming. It was definitely worth the purchase.


----------



## MarkC (Jul 4, 2009)

I still love my Castleford set. But I still want a Senior Reamer for the reasons Bryan mentions.


----------



## Aquinas (Mar 30, 2010)

Castleford update** I am restoring about 10 estate pipes and was able to ream 9 of them with the Castleford in half the time it took me to use sandpaper on one of them. Great results as well. Money very well spent!


----------

